The present invention relates to voice recognition and more particularly improving emotion recognition via a gamelike computer-implemented system.
Although the first monograph on expression of emotions in animals and humans was written by Charles Darwin in the last century and psychologists have gradually cumulated knowledge in the field of emotion detection and voice recognition, it has attracted a new wave of interest recently by both psychologists and artificial intelligence specialists. There are several reasons for this renewed interest: technological progress in recording, storing and processing audio and visual information; the development of non-intrusive sensors; the advent of wearable computers; and the urge to enrich human-computer interface from point-and-click to sense-and-feel. Further, a new field of research in AI known as affective computing has recently been identified.
As to research on recognizing emotions in speech, on one hand, psychologists have done many experiments and suggested theories. On the other hand, AI researchers made contributions in the following areas: emotional speech synthesis, recognition of emotions and using agents for decoding and expressing emotions. Similar progress has been made with voice recognition.
In spite of the research on recognizing emotions in speech, the art has been devoid of methods and apparatuses that utilize emotion recognition and voice recognition for business purposes.
A system, method and article of manufacture are provided for comparing user versus computer emotion detection of voice signals. First, a voice signal and an emotion associated therewith are provided. Then, the emotion associated with the voice signal is determined in an automated manner and subsequently stored. Next, a user determined emotion associated with the voice signal is determined by a user and received. The automatically determined emotion with the user determined emotion are then compared.
In one aspect of the present invention, the voice signal may be emitted, received or provided in any other manner. Further, the emotion associated with the voice signal may be identified upon the emotion being provided. In such case, it may be determined whether the automatically determined emotion or the user determined emotion matches the identified emotion.
Upon user-determined emotion matching the identified emotion, a prize may be awarded to the user. As an option, the emotion may be automatically determined by extracting at least one feature from the voice signals.